UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE

October 22, 2010

UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE

Merriam-Webster defines language as “A systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use ofconventionalized signs, sounds, gestures or marks having understood meanings.” The operative words in this definition are ‘means of communicating’ and ‘understood meanings’. There are 116 different “official” languages spoken on our planet today but 6900 languages AND dialects. The difference between a language and a dialect can be somewhat arbitrary so care must be taken when doing a “count”. English, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Spanish etc, all have specific and peculiar dialects; not to mention slang words and expressions so the discernment between a language and a dialect may be somewhat confusing to say the least..

The book of Genesis (Genesis 11: vs. 1-9) recounts a period of time, during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar, when an attempt was made, by mankind, to become equal with God and that one language was spoken by all the people. We are told that the attempt was not met with too much favor and God was pretty turned off by the whole thing. Go figure! With this being the case, He, decided to confound their language so that no one understood the other. This, as you might expect, lead to significant confusion and a great deal of “babbling” resulted. (Imagine a session of our United States Congress.) Another significant result was the dispersion of mankind over the earth—another direct result from their unwise attempt. This dispersion of the populace “placed” a specific language in a specific location and that “stuck”.

Regardless of the language spoken, the very basic components of any language are similar; i.e. nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, etc. You get the picture. The use and structure of these language elements within a sentence do vary. This fact is the essence of a particular language itself.

Would mankind not benefit from a common language? Would commerce not be greatly simplified if we could all understand each other? Think of all the money saved if everything written and everything spoken—every road sign and every label on a can of soup—could be read by 6.8 billion people. Why oh why have we not worked towards that over the centuries as a collective species. Surely someone has had that thought before. OK, national pride, but let’s swallow our collective egos and admit that we would be well-served by the movement, ever so gradual, towards one universal language. Let me backup one minute. We do have one example of a world-wide common language—

MATHEMATICS

Like all other languages, it has its own grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and word order, synonyms, negations, conventions, abbreviations, sentence and paragraph structure. Those elements do exist AND they are universal. No matter what language I speak, the formula for the area of a circle is A=π/4 (D)².

π = 3.14159 26535 89793

log(10)e = 0.43429 44819 03252

(x+y)(x-y) = x²-y²

R(1),R(2) = [-b ± ( b²-4ac)]^0.5/2a

The prime numbers are 2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23,29,31,37—You get the picture.

sinѲcscѲ = 1

Mathematics has developed over the past 2500 years and is really one of the very oldest of the “sciences”. One remarkably significant development was the use of zero (0)—which has only been “in fashion” over the past millennium. Centuries ago, men such as Euclid and Archimedes made the following discoveries and the following pronouncements:

If a straight line be cut at random, the square on the whole is equal to the squares on the segments and twice the rectangle contained by the segments. (Euclid, Elements, II.4, 300 B.C.) This lead to the formula: (a + b)2 = a2 + b2 + 2ab

The area of any circle is equal to a right-angled triangle in which one of the sides about the right angle is equal to the radius, and the other to the circumference, of the circle. (Archimedes, Measurement of a Circle, (225 B.C.) Again, this gives us the following formula:

A = 2pr·r/2 = pr 2

These discoveries and these accompanying formulas work for ANY language we might speak. Mathematics then becomes the UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE.

With that being the case, why do we not introduce the “Language of Mathematics” to our middle-school and high school pupils? Is any school district doing that? I know several countries in Western Europe started this practice some years ago with marvelous results. This “language” is taught prior to the introduction of Algebra and certainly prior to Differential Equations. It has been proven extremely effective and beneficial for those students who are intimidated by the subject. The “dread” melts away as the syntax and structure becomes evident. Coupled with this introduction is a semester on the great men and women of mathematics—their lives, their families, were they lived, what they ate, what they smoked, how they survived on a math teacher’s salary. These people had lives and by some accounts were absolutely fascinating individuals in their own right. Sir Isaac Newton invented calculus, was a real grouch, a real pain in the drain AND, had been jilted in his earlier years. Never married, never (again) even had a girlfriend, etc etc. You get the picture. The greatest mathematicians of all time are said to be the following:

What do we really know about these guys? Do we ever study them when we use their wonderful work? I think not. I honestly believe the study would be much more enjoyable IF we knew something about the men and women making the contributions they did. Think about it. PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!

22 Responses to “UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE”

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Hello Marketing. Actually, I got the idea for this posting from the magazine Machine Design. Math IS the universal language. Hopefully more students will come to realize that and take an added interest in the subject. Many thanks for taking a look. Bob